{"id":6728,"date":"2020-09-22T07:34:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T07:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/a-new-english-2\/"},"modified":"2020-09-22T07:34:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T07:34:22","slug":"a-new-english-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/a-new-english-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A new English"},"content":{"rendered":"

[T]he English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English<\/em>, still in full communion with its ancestral home, but altered to suit its new African surroundings<\/em>.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We ought to change the way we think about language from \u201cwhat languages look like to what people do with languages\u201d.[2]<\/a> In precolonial Southern Africa, for example in the kingdom of Mapungubwe, people lived and communicated with each other in a mix of different languages; Khoe, Nguni, San, and Sotho peoples used a range of languages that overlapped.[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Colonial and apartheid authorities sought to separate out the different languages and drew up both artificial and real boundaries between the languages: most infamously in what they called the Bantustans and the Bantu education system.[4]<\/a> Although the physical boundaries have been removed, the different languages are still treated as though they are separate \u2013 and they serve an important role in people\u2019s construction of identity.[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, people do continue to make use of a mix of languages: to optimise their communicative potential in any given context, and especially to construct context-specific meaning.[6]<\/a> In such a situation people\u2019s various identities are better acknowledged and access is improved for all participants \u2013 the concern is not what a language looks like, but what people do<\/em> with it.[7]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Prof. Leketi Makalela argues that this kind of \u201cubuntu translanguaging\u201d is ideal to decolonise our linguistic practices in public spaces; the idea of monolingualism is a European notion which arrived on African soil along with colonisation.[8]<\/a> He uses the specific example of songs students created during the #FeesMustFall protests: the lyrics alternate between Nguni languages and English. Thus, the \u201cboundaries\u201d between the four Nguni languages and English were not what was important; the meaning of people communicating their discontent and protest was<\/em>.[9]<\/a> In fact, he goes as far as to say that,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

because English represents the British colonial trajectory in South Africa, using it in decolonising the sociolinguistic predispositions for South Africa is the most appropriate path in the 21st<\/sup> century without the risk of losing the other languages.[10]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Put differently, he advances the idea that we should use the colonial language not in the way its use was prescribed in the past, but in a way that is in keeping with indigenous linguistic practices. That we ought to reach an ubuntu translanguaging mindset where we don\u2019t use language as a way to grant or deny access, but where we use all languages inclusively, in a way that says \u201cI learn because you learn\u201d.[11]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Note: This blog post is the second in a series that argues \u201cthat linguistic and cultural hybridity is our identity\u201d.[12]<\/a> It summarises certain aspects of an article<\/a> by prof. Leketi Makalela.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Achebe, Chinua. 1965. English and the African Writer.\u00a0Transition<\/em>, 18: p. 30; italicisation added.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Makalela, Leketi. 2018. \u201cOur academics are intellectually colonised\u201d: Multi-languaging and Fees Must Fall. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies<\/em>, 36 (1): p. 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em>, p. 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., pp. 2-3.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., p. 3.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., pp. 4-5.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., p. 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., p. 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., p. 6-7.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., p. 8.<\/span><\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Ibid<\/em>., p. 9.<\/span><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Kachru, Braj B. 1998. English as an Asian language. Links and Letters<\/em>, 5: p. 105.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[T]he English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home, but altered to suit its new African surroundings.[1] We ought to change the way we think about language from \u201cwhat languages look like to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741],"tags":[796,833],"class_list":["post-6728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","tag-south-african-languages","tag-ubuntu-translanguaging"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}